What Makes Grandparents Special

My children were lucky to have their grandparents nearby when they were growing up. I'm realizing that more and more lately, as my grandchildren are miles away from me, and I will only see them occasionally. I will never have the relationship with my grandchildren that my mother had, and still has, with my children. I was at the Y this morning and Laurie and I were having a conversation about the important role of grandparents. I've said it before, that I learn so many interesting things at the Y. What would I write about if I didn't go to the Y? I was telling Laurie that we had just returned from visiting our twin grandchildren, age 2 1/2, and yet I didn't feel like we spent much time with them. We enjoyed watching them play at the park, but there was not much time to talk to them and interact with them one on one. We decided that next time we will visit them at their home in LA. We can read to them, do puzzles, play ball, draw, and talk. We will get to spend more time getting to know them. My children were lucky that their grandparents lived just a mile away from us, and that they loved being involved with their grandchildren. My parents took care of my kids once a week, and boy, did my kids look forward to their time together. What did my parents do that made the grandparent/grandchild relationship so great? Nothing exotic, but the kids sure loved it. They might spend the morning playing "fireman" in the car. Or, they might mix up some homemade playdough. They could spend hours with playdough. Or, when the kids were young, a favorite pasttime was taking the pots and pans out of the kitchen shelves, then putting them back. Other things they might do is play hide and seek, play restaurant, or maybe take a deck of cards and build a city with cards. None of the things they did involved any special equipment, any extra expense, any driving. One of their favorite times was bed time, because that meant a made up story from grandpa. My dad was a wonderful storyteller, and bedtime was never a problem, because they would get 15 minutes of a continuing story. It might be a war story, a sea story or a jungle story, but my kids couldn't wait to get in bed and hear the next part of the story, and I know my dad couldn't wait to tell it to them. Most of the time spent with grandparents was spent at home, with nothing but their imagination and grandparents willing to play along with these childhood games. Do my kids remember trips to Disneyland, ski trips, even trips to Europe? Absolutely, but what they remember most fondly is the time spent with their grandparents, doing whatever came to mind. Today the task of grandparents is to keep these kind of experiences alive. It's easy to take kids to the mall, to the park, to a movie. It's much harder to stay home with them, encourage them to use their imaginations, be creative, enjoy a day without TV, IPads or phones. Laurie was telling me about her memory of going to her grandparents house in Canada and spending time with them in the summer, swimmming and fishing in the nearby lake. These are some of her fondest childhood memories. One of my fondest memories of my grandparents was a trip I took to New York, all alone, at age 10, to visit for 10 days. My grandfather took me to museums and taught me to play gin rummy while my grandmother took me shopping and out to lunch. In between I sang and danced for them, and made up skits with my cousin. Such a wonderful memory. Grandparents are special because they have 60+ years of experience to impart to their grandchildren, and because they have the TIME to listen. Parents are busy, busy, busy, always on the run, and don't always have time to sit down and just talk to their kids. As grandparents, we have the luxury of time, and as my grandkids get older, I can't wait to spend as much time as possible getting to know these wonderful little people.